In the late 90s, atheists began making the argument that less than a majority of scientists believe in God. In addition to this they argued that the National Academy of Sciences had only about 5% members who believed in God. All of this was due to the publication of a 1998 article entitled "Leading Scientists Still reject God." In that article, the author got hold of a survey done in 1914 by a guy named James Henry Luba and Nature Magazine noticed that the stats had not changed. So the conclusion that scientists are such great priests of knowledge, if they don't believe in God there must not be one.

Research on this topic began with the eminent US psychologist James H. Leuba and his landmark survey of 1914. He found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected US scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that this figure rose to near 70% among the 400 "greater" scientists within his sample [1]. Leuba repeated his …

This post comes under the heading of "what I want to tell atheists positively about Jesus." I started it back when I posted that one about Jesus and Dylan. It's based upon my outrage or dismay (I should say) over learning that so many atheists don't admire or respect Jesus as a historical figure. I re-posting it because after reading it again it seems pretty good.It's also in response to the statements by Weekend Fisher.

I have been deeply moved by Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco's (1883-1949) painting of Jesus chopping down his own cross. The Christ of this mural prostrate is drawn in a very primitive style. Christ is not the Pascal lamb but refuses his destiny and will not go to the cross. The painting is disturbing because the first impression is that of blasphemy. Is the artist mocking Christ? Is he rejecting faith at its most sacred level? Orozco is not trying to blaspheme Jes…

Atheists are always coming up with little gimmicks. Anytime you trump them with real knowledge they get up set and find a gimmick. The Jesus myth theory was such a gimmick. Jesus was such a compelling figure and there is some decent evidence he rose from the dead, so to counter that they just pretend he never existed, and give it a little name and make up some pseudo intelligent sounding crap pertaining to it. The "default" and the "extraordinary evidence credo" these are all gimmicks atheists made up and they are passed off as pseudo official sounding quasi logical tactics that in actuality mean nothing.

The latest is the Courtier's reply. This is it:

I recently referred to the "Courtier's Reply", a term invented by PZ Myers to rebut the claims of believers who insist that their superstitious beliefs are ever so much more sophisticated than the simple version that Dawkins attacks.

Today an estimated sixteen percent of Americans—or about 49 million American men, women, and children—live without religious affiliation.* As a group, religiously unaffiliated Americans are more numerous than any single religious denomination except Roman Catholics. They are more numerous than Hispanic Americans or African Americans ... more numerous than the estimated gay and lesbian population … more than seven times as numerous as American Jews … more than fifteen times as numerous as religiously active American Jews. Not all of the religiously unaffiliated would describe themselves as atheists or agnostics, but recent studies suggest that the actively nonreligious make up about two-thirds of this population, with spiritual seekers and persons between church affiliations making up the rest. How do we know these things? Recent—and authoritative—data comes from the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) and from surveys conducted in association with the Pew Foru…

How much do you know about religion? In a recent survey by the PEW Forum on Religion and Public Life, most Americans scored 50 percent or less on a quiz measuring knowledge of the Bible, world religions and what the Constitution says about religion in public life. The survey surprisingly found it's not evangelicals or Catholics who did the best - it's atheists and agnostics. It's not Bible-belt Southerners who scored highest - they where at the bottom of the survey. What a sad state of affairs when atheists and agnostics know more about the Bible than Christians.

Last week the net was abuzz with talk of a Pew study that said atheists know the Bible better than Christians do. I found about 14 blogs referring to it a…

This was originally posted atheistwatch. also I linked to it on carm. The carm guys never read it. They read the first line then said "he expalined that hd didn't mean it." The article is not saying that the guy really wants to kill anyone. My point is lot more subtle than that. Read the whole thing please. Its' so typical of Dawkies not to read the article then insist they know all about it.

This was first reported on the Tea Party blog "Blaze." It's here listed form the right wing source RS Red State. It's validated well enough because it's being reported on a hundred other blogs of all stripes. It's been admitted to and damaage control done by Stefanelli himself. Posted by The Rat (Profile) Friday, September 16th at 10:11AM EDT Our pals at American Atheists are in the news again; surprise, surprise. The hateful bigots just can’t seem to avoid controversy, although truth be told, I’m sure they know exactly what …

(1) Empirical science has produced knowledge, technology, medicine, etc., etc. It's awesome.(2) Abstract philosophy has produced nothing at all; it appears to be mere navel gazing.(3) Therefore, we should base all of our beliefs on empirical science, not abstract philosophy.(4) The arguments for God are abstract philosophy of exactly the kind that has proven so worthless.(5) Therefore, we should reject all of the arguments for God.

To me, this seems to be a powerful argument for non belief. It doesn't prove that there's no God, but it does provide a potential reason not to believe in God, which is the same thing for all practical purposes.

The theist has two ways out, maybe. The first would be to muddy the distinction between philosophy and science. I think that this is probably doable to some extent, but I'm not sure how doable it actually is. The second would be to attack (4), and arg…

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